


We Found Love In a Hopeless Place

by jazzypizzaz



Series: soulmate AU [2]
Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Denial, Episode: s05e09 The Ascent, M/M, Solid!Odo, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Tenderness, some smut in there as well :-)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-15
Updated: 2017-11-15
Packaged: 2019-02-03 01:02:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12737856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jazzypizzaz/pseuds/jazzypizzaz
Summary: Even with true love written on their arms, and mortality staring them in the face, Quark and Odo still can't quite confess their feelings for each other.  Not aloud anyway.





	We Found Love In a Hopeless Place

**Author's Note:**

> This fic just kind of... happened. I blame Rihanna. Some events and dialogue are copied straight from the show, others obviously aren't 
> 
> bonus: [playlist](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tg00YEETFzg&list=PLkx-i1H6kFpHiVGU9tq8Fv07Z8xEUq3dp) to listen to while reading!

The trip had started off in high spirits.  

 

Odo thought he would finally be able to pin a crime on Quark, that he could finally serve justice to the little twerp hellbent on chaos.  Quark, knowing he’d only been called as a witness in the trial, had been looking forward to crestfallen look on Odo’s face when Odo realized Quark would walk free.

 

Then, of course, they had crashed on this desolate wasteland, with only each other for company and a very long journey ahead of them.

 

The outlook seemed more bleak the farther they went, each progressive step becoming heavier.  It was icy cold, and even colder was the chill between them, that they had gotten each other into this mess and every weary meter ahead made it more likely they would die here.  Together.

 

“I’ll never eat Andorian snow cream,” Quark listed on his fingers.  “I’ll never own my own franchise of themed bars and restaurants, one on every planet.  I’ll never own my moon, like --”

 

“Like your cousin Gaila, I know I know,” Odo heaved, stepping onto the next rock.

 

“And I’ll never get a chance to beat him at tongo either!” Quark said.  He had been at this for some time now, as a way to pass the time, and each missing experience had only given him more ideas.

 

Odo scoffed and moved on ahead.  Quark scrambled up the boulder after him; he didn’t think Odo would leave him behind, since Quark had the thermo-pants, but one could never be too sure.

 

“I’ll never get oomox from an Andorian fe-male.  I’ll never --”

 

“If you save your energy for climbing, instead of for complaining, you can lament about all the profit you’ll never earn _back at the station_.”

 

“Are you saying there’s not a single thing you’d regret, if we die on this mountain?”  Quark said, a bit out-of-breath from trying to keep up.

 

“I don’t plan on dying here.  You, on the other hand, I can only hope --”

 

Quark, having taken an extra large step to cross a gap between boulders, landed on uneven footing.  The dropoff only a few feet away gave him vertigo.  He flailed towards Odo, shrieking, and desperately grabbed onto Odo’s arm for support.  He still couldn’t catch his balance, though, and his weight pulled down Odo’s jacket sleeve.  

 

The sleeve tore, from shoulder to wrist.  

 

Quark went toppling forward, eating a face full of gravel.

 

“Quark…” Odo sighed.

 

“Help me up, would ya?”  Quark, not waiting for an answer, latched onto Odo’s arm to pull himself up.  As he did, he caught a glimpse of black rectangular markings along Odo’s forearm.

 

“Hey, what’s this?” Quark said, attempting to push back the torn sleeve pieces from the text.

 

“Nothing.”  Odo yanked his arm back, hastily folding the sleeve scraps over it.  He turned back towards the ledge path to continue onwards.

 

“It’s clearly not nothing,” Quark said.  “Or you’d show me.”

 

“If I say it’s nothing, it’s _nothing_.”  

 

“That _definitely_ means it’s something.”  Quark tilted his head as he walked, putting the pieces together.  “It’s soulmark words, isn’t it.”  

 

“Of course not.”  Odo’s tone was harsh and biting, like the wind whipping through Quark’s lobes.

 

“I didn’t think you had them.  No one did,” Quark mused.  To think after all this time, Odo was still full of surprises for Quark to discover.  “There’s a regret for you, that you haven’t found your soulmate.  That’s on my list too.  See, the words on my arm --”

 

“It’s not a soulmark.”

 

“Well then what is it, a grocery list?” Quark said with exasperated sarcasm.  As an expert liar himself, he can tell when someone’s protests only serve to reveal.

 

“It’s not anything, Quark.” Odo said.  He sounded tired.  Like he had been hiking longer than just the past day.  Like his whole life had been a steep mountain.  Quark knew the feeling.

 

“That’s not an answer.”  Quark stopped walking and folded his arms over his chest.  “Tell me, or you can’t have the pants.”

 

Odo didn’t even slow down.  “It’s just some dirt then.  Let’s _go_.  Enough of your ridiculous delusions.”  

 

Quark growled in frustration, but continued his walking pace.  “What does it say?  Looked like Kardasi...  Or maybe you _do_ know who said them…?”

 

Odo said nothing.

 

“Is it Major Kira?  You can tell me.  No use keeping stubborn secrets now, and what does it matter anyway, when --”  

 

“I don’t plan to die on this mountain, with you.  And I don’t _have_ any regrets, besides not locking you in a jail cell years ago and throwing away the key --”

 

“Fine.  Whatever.”  Quark’s teeth chattered, and he rubbed fruitlessly at his arms.  He had enough of a hill to climb without this.  Let Odo be miserable.

 

They walked in silence until dark -- cold and exhausted, left alone with their separate thoughts.  Odo went somewhere distant in his head, more isolated than this barren planet.  Quark’s mind spun in circles, more questions for Odo on the tip of his tongue, but they died frozen in his mouth.

 

After all, Odo had never asked about Quark’s own words.  

 

\---

 

Some time later, they stopped for the night in a shallow cave.  Odo made several pitiful tries at a campfire, but all the sparks landed on cold, green wood.  Before long, they curled up to sleep, several feet of rocky floor between them.  The icy wind was a dismal, insistent soundtrack to their attempted respite, but due to their exhaustion they fell asleep despite its hollow howls.

 

With the night still dark as their hopes, Odo awakened several hours later to whimpering and whining.  It was Quark, twitching and tossing in a fretful slumber.  Odo, after some consideration, pulled Quark close, gently so as not to wake him, wrapping him in his arms so they could share warmth.

 

“Only so you don’t keep me awake all night,” Odo mumbled, but Quark didn’t hear him.  He already had sunk into a deeper sleep.

 

When Quark awoke the next morning -- shivering as though he had somehow been warm at one point and only now had the cold begun to seep back in -- he felt strangely relaxed.  Odo was crouched several meters away, awake and ready.  

 

Sunlight streamed in through the cave.  

 

They continued their trek.

 

\---

Odo rubbed his hands together, blowing into them in a futile attempt at staving off numbness.  Judging by how badly his legs ached as they trudged ever father onwards, however, perhaps it was for the best that he couldn’t feel his fingers.

 

Too late, his arm registered the sensory input of a breeze across his forearm.  The tattered sleeve had fallen away once he had lifted his hands up.

 

“‘Does he owe you money?’” Quark quoted from Odo’s arm, craning his head sideways to read it.  Odo scowled and reddened before tucking it back into the sleeve.  “Huh.  Well, _did_ he owe you money?”

 

Odo walked faster, so that Quark was no longer beside him.  There was no reason Odo had to entertain such a nonsense topic.  Who knows, perhaps the mountain would claim their souls first.

 

“Who said it?  Because that sounds like something--”  Quark called after him, in between his panting breath, then, abruptly, he fell silent.

 

Odo relaxed.  A quiet Quark was one infinitesimal blessing in this whole mess of a situation!  Then Odo realized he also couldn’t hear Quark’s footsteps behind him, so he glanced back over his shoulder.

 

Quark was standing completely still, several meters downhill.  He was like a statue amidst the craggy boulders surrounding them, his face frozen as he stared at Odo with a vacant expression.  The communicator hung heavy on his back, then, slowly, Quark swung it off and set it on the ground.

 

“Quark…”  Odo sighed.

 

Quark’s mouth opened slightly, then closed.

 

“Quark, need I remind you we don’t have time for --”

 

Quark blinked a couple times, glancing away.  Then he squinted back at Odo as if Odo were a hidden column in an accounting spreadsheet, one that warped all Quark’s former calculations  “How long?”

 

“How long _what_ Quark?  How long will it take to scale this peak?  How long will you ignore basic respect for my privacy?  How long will run your mouth with incessant questions instead of--”

 

“But they couldn’t have known -- And you -- but they -- Unless you -- but no that doesn’t --”  Quark’s face, chapped and ruddy from the wind, contorted into strange shapes.  Like he was about to combust from whatever string of half-baked conclusions he was skipping between in his head.  (What a lousy detective he’d make, Odo noted, not for the first time.)  

 

As irritating as Quark’s ridiculous prattle was, Odo now wished he could at least spit out a full sentence.  “Quark, it’s not --”

 

With a dizzy look, Quark finally did: “Was it the Founders?  That gave you it?”

 

“ _No_ , I’ve always had it,” Odo said, vehemently.  As if they would have marked Odo as belonging to a _humanoid_ , of all things, along with cursing him!  Then Odo cleared his throat, embarrassed he let that slip.  “It’s not important.”

 

“You’ve _always_ … What do you mean you’ve always --”  Abruptly, Quark shook off his shock.  An exasperated guttural noise escaped his mouth as he stomped forward towards Odo, stabbing his finger towards him.  “That means, since we met.  You _knew_.”   

 

Odo sighed.  “There’s nothing to know; it doesn’t mean anything.”

 

“All these years!  That first day…”  

 

“A few scribbled words don’t mean --”

 

Quark angrily tore his own sleeve back and thrusted his own marked arm towards Odo.  Odo scowled and pushed him away, but not before he (unwillingly) read the words.  

 

The words Odo had always hoped weren’t written there.  The words he sometimes hoped _were_.

 

(At least then he wouldn’t be alone.  Untethered to anyone.)

 

Quark’s jaw started quivering.  His anger fizzled out into a plaintive whine.  “You knew I was your soulmate and you didn’t say anything.”

 

“And you wonder why I don’t go around showing it off.  Because of reactions like this; you humanoids, always trying to make meaning of chaos, making no attempt at _control_ \--”

 

“We’re going to die, and you _still_ weren’t going to tell me.”  There was water droplets forming at the edges of Quark’s eyes, though from windchill or something else, Odo didn’t know.  

 

“If I had, when we first met, would you have told me the truth? Or would you have lied like you lie about everything?”

 

Quark’s mouth twisted and he glanced away, acknowledging it.

 

“Have I ever told you how much I hate that smug, superior attitude of yours?”  Quark finally spat, looking distinctly put out.

 

“Have I ever told you how much I hate your endless whining, your pathetic greed and your idiotic little schemes?”  Odo said.

 

Quark threw his hands up in the air in exasperation.  “Well I hate --”

 

Odo loomed over him.  “What? What do you hate?”

 

“ _You_.”  Quark pushed at Odo’s chest.  

 

“Well that's fine with me, because I hate you too.”  Odo pushed back at Quark, causing Quark to stumble back a few steps.

 

Quark blinked a few times, then lunged forward.  

 

Instead of the shove Odo expected, Quark fisted his hands in Odo’s jacket, pulling him down towards him.  His mouth lunged towards Odo’s face.  Odo panicked and jerked away.  But Quark had already leaned too far forward, and when his face didn’t meet Odo’s as intended, he lost his balance and stumbled right over Odo’s feet.  His fists still clutching Odo’s jacket as he fell, he pulled Odo down with him.  

 

They tumbled over each other -- Quark holding on still and Odo trying to shove him away -- and over the rocks, bruised and beaten as they went.

 

Until, finally, instead of trying to get away, Odo grabbed onto Quark and he slammed his shoulders into the ground.  They came to an abrupt stop, Odo pinning Quark to the hard earth.

 

Quark blinked up at him, inches away.  

 

Odo suddenly realized he could feel every inch of Quark’s small body, warm and present underneath him.  

 

Quark was panting -- from the exertion, from the stress and tension, from emotion -- and so was Odo, but as they lied there at rest, immobilized, Odo’s heart wouldn’t slow down.  

 

In fact, it kept pounding faster.

 

“You,” Odo spat out, not sure where he was going with this, but needing to break the tension. “You're nothing but a petty thief.  My soulmark can’t be about _you_.”

 

Quark’s eyes widened.  Sounding breathless and rather dazed: “Well -- _you_ are an arrogant prude.  I wouldn’t want my mark to be about _you_ either.”  

 

Above, the harsh sunglare mocked them with its ineffectiveness.  Out further, empty space stretched on, without hope or help.  Surrounding them, the inhospitable rocks were silent of all sounds of other life.  And the icy wind screamed unwelcome to the two of them, foreigners here and both lost in more ways than one.  

 

But Quark’s petulant grating voice was so familiar Odo could almost cry.

 

“ _Lecher_ ,” Odo said, almost gently, then leaned down to press his face into Quark’s.  

 

Just as he had read about in the Bajoran soulmate romance he had been reading on the shuttlecraft.  Just like the lucky few soulmates meeting Odo had witnessed firsthand, who would cry out after hearing their soulmark words in another’s mouth for the first time.  Just like the hundreds of people streaming through the station do every day, in every combination and situation, but that Odo had never done himself before now.

 

He hadn’t realized just how cold he had been -- on the mountain, in his lonely life -- until he had Quark’s mouth warm and soft beneath his.  

 

And when it broke away, after a long dizzying moment, Odo felt the loss.

 

“Freak,” Quark said, searching Odo’s face.  

 

Apparently he found what he was looking for, because then he smacked his lips back against Odo’s, drinking him in.  Odo’s head was swimming, whether from the cold or the exhaustion or from something else, something better -- his pounding heart, the melting warmth of Quark’s kiss -- he wasn’t sure.  

 

Quark clutched at Odo, desperate to keep him close, as if Odo could get any closer than sprawled on top of him and kissing into his mouth.

 

Odo’s skin tingled -- goosebumps from the cold? -- electric and receptive to Quark’s hands travelling under his clothes.  Something started building in Odo’s stomach, no, lower, expectant and wanting, and suddenly Odo needed more.  

 

More of what, though, he didn’t know.

 

But Quark would.

 

“Fraud,” Odo said, slightly panicked, while Quark sucked at his neck.

 

Quark raised a browridge at Odo’s panicked face, as if responding to a challenge.  Or a request. Then Quark wriggled beneath him, repositioning their body.  And -- _oh! there it is_ \-- Odo gasped a puff of air at the sudden friction, as they lined up just right.

 

Quark shivered.  From the cold?  Or maybe from Odo’s breath in his ear.  Odo breathed out harder, an experiment, then mouthed at Quark’s lobes.  Quark moaned.  He rucked against Odo, almost frantic, as if they slowed down it wouldn’t be real.  As if they didn’t have enough time.

 

(And maybe they didn’t.)

 

Odo gripped at Quark to control the pace better.  One of his hands grasped Quark’s backside to hold him aligned, the other forearm across Quark’s shoulders to hold his weight.

 

Slow, slower.  Until it was just them, here, together.  A delicate bubble of bliss, separate, for the moment, from the desolate place surrounding them..  

 

Quark whined and moaned, twitching as Odo held him down.  “Fascist,” he cried out.

 

Why hadn’t Odo ever tried this before?  For the life of him, he couldn’t remember.

 

Quark’s face twisted into a series of contortions, and it’s certainly not the first time Odo had seen this expression from Quark, as a reaction to pure pleasure at the hands of some lover or another, but never had it been because of Odo.  

 

Odo sped up, thrusting against Quark’s prone form.  Odo made eye contact with him and held it, and with every movement Quark trembled as if he’s about to fall apart.  

 

He could have been making Quark look at him like this for years.  Like Odo was a Peldor Festival, a full consortium in tongo, and a stack of latinum all at once.  

 

Why had he ever thought this didn’t mean anything?

 

“Failure,” Odo said, but whether he’s talking to himself now or Quark, he’s not sure.  

 

They reached the peak together, then relaxed into a heap -- warm and safe at last in a way they’d never felt before.

 

Whatever fate existed in this universe, it may have doomed them from the start -- to remain stuck in a rut of his own making, to  exist everyday estranged from his people, to die on this mountain forgotten -- but at the very least it hadn't doomed them to face these challenges alone.

 

\---

 

“Odo? Odo? Are you awake?” Quark said.  He had just awoken himself, safe now on a Starfleet medical bed, though whether from a dream or a nightmare he wasn't sure.  A bit of both perhaps.

 

“I am now,” Odo groaned, cantankerous but alive.  His natural state.

 

“We survived.”

 

“We did,” Odo said, though judging by the wariness in his tone he didn't seem too ready to accept this fact yet.

 

“You remember back there,” Quark said and he could see Odo tense up in bed next to him, “when I told you I hated you, and you told me you hated me?”

 

“Vividly.”  Odo's face shuttered off, guarded in advance against whatever Quark was going to say next, no doubt expecting some uncharacteristic admission.

 

Quark smiled and took a deep breath.  “I just wanted you to know I meant every word of it.”

 

Odo guffawed, then smiled, then began chuckling with pent-up relief.  Quark joined in.  

 

“So did I.”

 

There were some secrets that need to be confessed -- who in the Orion Syndicate could be bribed not to bomb one's shuttle, would be a good start -- but others were so obvious -- between the lines of every insult, in the ridge of every scowl -- that any admission would be unnecessary.  

  
His heart had known all along.

**Author's Note:**

> yeah sorry, the playlist was my idea of a joke... but uhhh, if you have a favorite cover of the song let me know. ;-)
> 
> also -- how did the rest of their trek go? does Odo still break his leg somehow? who knows not me!


End file.
